This week’s SmackDown Live was thoroughly entertaining, and a great boxing day treat for all fans of the WWE Universe. The show started off with Daniel Bryan taking charge and laying out the plans for the US Title and SmackDown Live Tag Team Titles for the next few weeks.
And it all ended with a beautifully crafted Kevin Owens win over AJ Styles. Hats off to Sami Zayn for is performance at the side of the ring with Shane McMahon.
Inbetween all that was the continued return to the ring for Breezango as they took on The Bludgeon Brothers again, and Ruby Riot’s demolition of the SmackDown Live women’s division.
All this amounted to an increased viewership from last week’s average of 2,578,000 to this week’s 2,656,000. However SmackDown Live’s numbers are actually down compared to this time last year when the show drew an average of 2,885,000 – a decrease of over 200,000 viewers.
The B-Show also lost out to it’s big brother as RAW drew a Christmas Day viewership of 2,703,000 which, again, is down on it’s ratings from last year: 2,855,667.
WWE will understand though, as previous figures have shown a dip in viewers over holidays as only a portion of fans will tune in. Although the company promoted the special historic shows, it was always going to be difficult to win over viewers especially with the shows being aired on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. I mean, how can WWE compete with the inevitable family board games, post feast naps and endless games of charades that take hold over the festive holiday period!?
But does this all account for the overall decrease in ratings from last year? Numbers don’t lie and comparing January and February’s digits to those of last year may reveal if WWE have lost out in 2017.
